I’ve been using large language models (LLMs) for a while now. They accelerate and improve my output at work, to the point that losing access to them would make me feel slightly impaired in some areas. Rather than fearing WriterBot, I’m embracing the additional capabilities it grants. At the same time, I’m extremely conscious of their limitations, which are abundant. Let me tell you how LLMs are helping me in my everyday work as a documentation engineer and where they’re unable to assi...| passo.uno
I’ve recently started a new job as a documentation engineer. While my work is largely the same as that of a technical writer, the sound and semantics of my new job title gave me some pause and made me think about what it really means to be doing docs-as-code. To say that it’s about writing documentation using the same tools and methods as software developers is correct, but fails to acknowledge the full consequences of the fact. Most descriptions of docs-as-code are naive because they sto...| passo.uno
With the job market getting tougher by the day, there’s a rising belief among tech writers that their role is “too niche” and a “dead-end job”. I think that’s the wrong way of looking at our profession — at any profession. Let me cast aside that dark veil of pessimism and offer an alternative viewpoint, that of tech writing as a platform to other professions, one that lets you move laterally with just a bit of curiosity and courage.| passo.uno
A month ago, Lana Novikova asked me to imagine the future of software documentation. What will software technical writing look like in, say, 2049, when our profession will be a century old? Will we be writing markup in git repositories or use ÜberDITA in space? Will our job still exist? I’ve put my futurist hat on to picture the shape of our profession 25 years from now. Buckle up!| passo.uno
A recurring question from people entering the tech writing profession is “Should I learn to code?”. This query has become hugely popular in the docs-as-code age, where writers and developers live in the same DevOps trenches, eating the same CI/CD rations and publishing docs using broken tools that often lack maintainers. My answer is “These are not the learnings you’re looking for.”| passo.uno
Dear software developer, You might have heard about technical writers, those mythical creatures. You might even be working with one. Whatever the case, I’d like to send you advice on how to achieve a healthy work relationship with technical writers so that you can get the best possible documentation for your product.| passo.uno